Andy at the wheel to turn the city’s buses around

Everyone knows New York's subways are in the Intensive Care Unit — but buses, their long-neglected cousin, need just as urgent surgery.

So we welcome Transit Authority President Andy Byford's rush to right a network so plagued by traffic-exacerbated delays and swaths of spotty service that riders have departed in droves, dragging ridership down 14% in a decade.

Advertisement

Byford's new bus plan bursts with strong ideas to improve service, connected to clear deadlines. Pity he didn't put a price tag on it all.

Among the highlights: A comprehensive B1-to-X68 reworking of routes, many of which have barely changed in generations. Also on his list is using an in-the-works touch-free fare-payment system to allow boarding at all doors on all buses by the end of 2020. Great; get it done.

To further speed buses along, Byford wants more bus lanes, more traffic signals that stay green when a bus approaches and more cameras that snap selfish drivers who block bus lanes.

He'll need the city's Department of Transportation and state Legislature, too often feckless on this front, to get on board.

Not least, an online dashboard will show whether all of the above and more actually works to move people around the city more quickly.

If, if, if Byford can get the job done on time, a new era will arrive along with (there it is!) the bus.